Big news! We're partnering with @Venmo, the payment brand trusted by over 100 million users across the US. Over the past several months, we've worked with teams across Venmo to make Venmo easy to use wherever their users shop. @KnotAPIs enables users to save Venmo as their payment method with participating merchants, right from the Venmo app and without manually re-entering their details. Depending on the merchants, users can either link their Venmo account to Pay with Venmo at checkout or save their Venmo Debit Card - enabling a fast and easy way to pay with Venmo, all powered by Knot. It also marks a first for us. This is the first time Knot has provisioned a proprietary checkout solution as the default payment option, extending what we do beyond just the card. It's a win across the board: users get a more seamless shopping experience and a simple way to spend with Venmo, and merchants can capture more spend with customers. At Knot, our mission has always been to remove friction from payments and merchant connectivity. This collaboration with Venmo is exactly that in action. More to come soon. Thank you to the wonderful Venmo team for their collaboration!

Today @boardisfun is thrilled to announce our $20M Series A, led by @usv. USV’s newest partner, @mignano, will be joining our board, and we could not be more excited. Joining USV in this round is an amazing group of new investors: @haystackvc, @biz, @elanlee, @eshp, @JesseDorogusker, @kayvz, @scottbelsky, and @tferriss. In addition to our incredible existing investors; @adjacent, @patronfund, @LererHippeau, @BoxGroup, @svangel, @firstround, @kevintwohy, @nabeel, @jduyan, IRL Ventures, @MetrodoraVC, @coalitionvc, and @twelve_below.

We’re excited to announce that @KnotAPIs is now live with @CashApp. The Cash App Card is one of the largest debit card programs in the United States. With Knot's CardSwitcher™, Cash App cardholders can instantly add their card across the merchants they use most, including Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Uber, and 100+ more, without ever leaving the app. Cash App has always focused on creating intuitive financial experiences. Knot builds on that by driving activation and spend for Cash App, reducing churn and abandoned carts for merchants, and giving users a frictionless way to use their Cash App Card. We’re proud to power an even more seamless Cash App Card experience and excited for what’s ahead. More to come.

Hosting a private, off-the-record, sit-down dinner w/ @biz, Twitter/X and Medium co-founder. May 28 in Boston. Have a few seats left. Waitlist: partiful.com/e/3IV70qLxgUmVh…

There is a lot of discussion around recursive loops of self-improvement for AI. Using AlphaEvolve at Substrate has given us a clear glimpse into this future, and is now accelerating the ultimate recursive loop: AI improving itself all the way down to the atoms.

I'm hiring people who care about people to build social AI that helps people care about people! if you're an engineer/researcher/multi-hyphenate excited about some or all of the following: - social agents and social memory - consumer - s2e3 of rick and morty - collective intelligence - gossip girl - craft - alexander mcqueen spring/summer 1995 - information markets and behavioral economics - pop culture - having a lot of fun and moving super fast with people you care a lot about ... please reach out! dm me or email me at j[at]futurelovers[dot]com

Introducing Board – the first ever face-to-face gaming console that combines the best of board games and video games into one beautiful new platform. Place a piece on the Board and it knows exactly what it is, where it is, and what it can do. And every piece unlocks entirely new ways to play, together. Buy it now. board.fun.

Substrate is building a next-generation foundry to return America to dominance in semiconductor production. To achieve this, we will use our technology—a new form of advanced X-ray lithography—to power them. America invented semiconductors. We will lead again.